The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Prof Paul Gilbert OBE: Lessons on Compassion, Failure & Success in Psychology

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

Professor Paul Gilbert OBE joins Dr Marianne Trent on The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast to share powerful lessons on compassion, shame, failure and success in psychology. In this special 200th episode, Paul reflects on his career, the creation of Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), and what psychologists at every stage: aspiring, trainee and qualified can learn about resilience, self-kindness, and staying grounded in challenging timesDiscover how compassion underpins effective therapy, how to integrate theory and practice, and why failure is a necessary step towards growth. Paul also explores trauma, leadership in psychology, and the importance of building compassionate communities within services and society.Whether you’re preparing for DClinPsy interviews, working as an assistant psychologist, or established in clinical practice, this episode is packed with wisdom and practical insights to support both your professional development and personal wellbeing.Resources mentioned: 📚 📲The Compassionate Mind Book: https://amzn.to/3W7PJ7gThe Compassion Project Book - Dr Julian Abel: https://amzn.to/3VyPCSfPaul's website, The Compassionate Mind Foundation: https://www.compassionatemind.co.ukLinks:🫶 To support me by donating to help cover my costs for the free resources I provide click here: https://the-aspiring-psychologist.captivate.fm/support📚 To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0 📖 To check out The Aspiring Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97 💡 To check out or join the aspiring psychologist membership for just £30 per month head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/membership-interested🖥️ Check out my brand new short courses for aspiring psychologists and mental health professionals here: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/short-courses✍️ Get your Supervision Shaping Tool now: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/supervision📱Connect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the Aspiring Psychologist Book, Clinical Psychologist book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrent💬 To join my free Facebook group and discuss your thoughts on this episode and more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aspiringpsychologistcommunityLike, Comment, Subscribe & get involved:If you enjoy the podcast, please do subscribe and rate and review episodes. If you'd like to learn how to record and submit your own audio testimonial to be included in future shows head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/podcast and click the blue request...

Hi, I'm Max and a work as an assistant psychologist in a learning disability service in West Yorkshire. Like most people working in psychology, I'm slowly but surely working myself up to that seemingly impossible goal of getting onto the clinical doctorate. With that end goal in mind, I thought I'd have a look at what's out there and see what books might be helpful for this. I came across Marianne's book, The Clinical Psychologist Collective, and decided that this would be a great buy for me to help me on my journey. I found Marianne's book really informative, most insightful. I especially liked how the story has reassured me that you don't need to be academically perfect to become a psychologist, and that as long as you have good

interpersonal skills, such as compassion and empathy, you will get there. I would highly recommend this book to all aspiring psychologists, and also those who want to know a bit more about the world of clinical psychology and made me want to work in that field one day. Professor Paul Gilbert OBE is one of the most influential psychologists of our time. And today I have the absolute privilege of speaking with him. In this episode, he shares lessons from a lifetime of work on compassion, shame, failure and success, and what they mean for us right now as psychologists and for the next generation of psychologist too. I'm Dr. Marianne, a qualified clinical psychologist. And if you like this content,

subscribe, comment, share, do all those good things. And I hope you love it as much as I do. Hi, welcome along to the aspiring psychologist podcast. I am thrilled to be joined today by our guest, Professor Paul Gilbert OBE. Welcome, Paul. Well, thank you so much, Marianne, for inviting me. Well, thank you for saying yes, because I know you're a very busy man. And I thought, firstly, today, I'd really love to talk to you about psychology career. And during this episode, celebrating 200 episodes of the aspiring psychologist podcast, I'd really love to, I guess, firstly, thank you because I discovered your book, the compassionate mind, the big yellowy orange one in 2018 after my dad had died.

But I had this sliding doors moment where I could have discovered it sooner. So at that stage, I was in my doctorate for clinical psychology, and there was a number of books on a sideboard at a kind of a gathering we'd had. And one of my cohort had said, does anyone want to borrow any of these books? And I know that's an author's worst nightmare that these books are all being shared around, and we get no royalties. And I looked at it, and I saw the size of it, I have to say, Paul. And I was like, no, no, no, thanks. But actually when I then had the time to listen to it in 2018, when I think I needed it most, I was like, what if I had to pick that up in 2010?

How might that have helped me to go through training more compassionately, to be pregnant and to birth my children and kind of have them when they were younger and support me in my relationships and in grief and all of that stuff? And I just wanted to say, thank you for what you do, for me, but also, you know, the world, really, and the psychology community, because it really matters. So thank you. How wonderful is that? Okay, I think I'll stop at this point. That's just wonderful.

Yeah, but like, even this podcast has been so informed by you and your work. You know, I thought, well, if we could have a compassionate voice, guiding to you. people through their career. And I was in the position when I was 22, 23, I would say I was working in Milton Keynes Council doing some work with physically disabled adults. I didn't know any clinical psychologists at the time. And obviously the internet was around, but it was very different and podcasts weren't really a thing at all, I think, at that stage. And I thought, what if people have the competences and the capabilities to develop into a really great, you know, HCPC psych one day, but they don't currently, they can't currently getting the room to be having

those conversations or to be able to expand their knowledge or to tune in to, you know, the mighty Paul Gilbert. So that's why the podcast was born to be able to kind of level the playing field a little bit, but also to up the compassion in this, in this career. Well, that's wonderful. And congratulations on 200 episodes. That's amazing. That's an amazing amount of work and effort. Thank you. Yeah, it is. And it's 200 weeks. So it's a, it's been a weekly podcast because I fear that if I ever, I've had a week off, I wouldn't want to go back because I'd realize how nice it is to have a little bit more time. But I'm passionate about it and I'm passionate about the people who listen to it and to value it. So let's, let's think a little bit about you and your career, Paul. Tell us about, tell us about you and what kind of brought you to where we are now. Well, it's a slightly interesting career because originally I always wanted to be a psychologist in the 60s, but in those days they said, oh, no, psychology is not much of a career for you. And I was studying economics. They said, no, yeah, that would be much better for you. So I did do that. I got a degree in economics. But while I was going through, I was also reading a psychology books and think, no, I want to do that. And in those days, you could do changeover courses. And so I did a changeover course. What that meant is that they would take people with other degrees, and then you could do an MSC and psychology, it's experimental psychology. Fast track it. It was very intense course. So I went down to Sussex in 73, 74, and did the MSC down there.

Now, it turned out I wasn't very good at neurophysiology, so I failed my neurophysiology and had to stay there for another year. So I needed some money. So I went and worked as a night nurse and a psychiatric and acute unit in. writing and that was interesting because in those days we used to have all the young people coming down from London and taking loads of drugs on Brighton Beach and then ending up as our guests because they'd sort of lost it a bit so it was very interesting I learned to an awful lot doing that year on acute psychiatry I always wanted to be a clinician so I studied very hard neurophysiology and managed to pass obviously and then

set off and I started off in Birmingham, but we then went to Edinburgh. I went to an Emberra MRC unit and that was good for me because I was on an acute ward. Again, we used to take people from all over Scotland with chronic depression and so I had a little office on the ward and the Prof Ashcroft, who was the professor of psychiatry, lovely man, it's long, long passed away now. So look, the best way to understand depression is to go and talk to repress people and you've got lots of them here. So I used to do that is to go on to the ward and go around chat to people and learn a lot about stories and part of the themes that came out of that was obviously the history of abuse that was one thing genetic vulnerability was another thing and also the sense of defeat and entrapment and lossness that shunned through those people's experience and for those who know my research that became a big issue of looking at issues of feelings of social defeat and entrapment and so on and it's been a big series of studies on that now so So they got the PhD and oh, by the way, well, I was in Brighton, the one year I met my beloved

because I used to play cricket for the university and she used to keep the score, so that was nice, wasn't it really? And we've been together ever since. So we toddled off to Edinburgh and the thing about Edinburgh was because it was an MRC unit, they were all doing these studies on drugs and everything. If you didn't understand neurophysiology, you didn't have any friends at lunch. So I'd have all these psychiatrists say, oh, you know, depression is all to do with these receptors in the brain. And I said, yes, that's important, but could they all be created by psychological and social processes?

So my first book was called Depression from Psychology to Brain State in 1984. And that was really arguing the ways of which psychological and social processes can have major impacts on the brain. And in 75, Martin Selwyn came out with his book and Helpless and showing these massive changes in physiology when people are confronted with uncontrollable stresses. And that's really quite important because, as you know, we have a biosyncosocial process. When you're working with depressed patients,

they feel really ill. I mean, physiologically, they're not well. Then that doesn't mean to say they have an endogenous illness, but they are really not well. And the sleep cycles off, the circadian rhythms off, dopamine systems have pretty much collapsed for some of the severe depressions. It was always important to keep in mind that you're not just dealing with negative schemers or beliefs or whatever, but actually dealing with somebody whose brain and body

have kind of been affected by the depression, and therefore you're going to need a therapy that's going to have some kind of physiological effect. So that was always sort of in my mind, really. So that was – then I was decided I wanted to be a researcher. I was going to go to Stanford. And my beloved and I got married on the basis of that, because we were living together together. And that was fine. And they said, in Edinburgh, they said, oh, no, STEM, do the clinical training.

I said, no, I go to Stanford, don't you do? But when I was just about to go, I had a letter to say there'd been a complication with the department, the department was on some kind of investigation. So they couldn't honor the job. Nowadays, of course, I'd sue them. But in those days, I just sort of wandered off with my leg, a tail between my legs. But luckily, I managed to get a place on a clinical course in Norwich. So in 1978, we headed down to Norwich,

and I became, started to train as a clinical psychologist with the, what was then the BPS diploma. And so that's how I got into clinical psychology by various routes. The interesting thing about economics was economics was always about building models. So you had to, in the first year, you'd understand some unemployment and the terms of trade and how the money supply works. And then the second year, you start to see how economies work and so on. When I got to psychology, it was odd because you'd have a course on motivation, a course

on child development, it was no integrated thinking at all. And when I said to people that were talking to me, it was training me, I said, well, what about an integrated model of the mind? How does these things all work together? And they kind of looks into in their beer and said, oh, no, that's too complicated, tap, tat. No, we don't do that. We just study these different bits. We're very scientific.

We're going to study language. We study language. We don't think about how language affects motivation. So I thought, well, in order for us to have models about how and why people become mentally and mental health difficulties or what we can do, we need to understand how the mind works as a system, right? So you need to understand. So where you look at compassion focus therapy, which we'll talk about a little bit later, you'll find that really it's rooted in all the basic psychological sciences.

And that's why I think psychologists in particularly like them, because we don't root it in cognitive systems or motivational systems. You need to think about all of those. So if you look at the standard psychology textbook, which you would have done in your undergraduate days, there is a whole literature on motives and how motives were. There's a whole literature on emotions, and there's a whole literature on cognitive processes, problem solving, mind, and so that's the problem is when people turn up, clinical psychologists turn up for training. They've kind of forgotten all that. And so they're just trying to work in a model, you know, a CBT model or a DBT model or KGB model, whatever it is. They're trying to fit all these complicated processes into a single model, and they simply won't fit. And that's why. we are not as forward, I believe, in our psychological therapies as we could be.

Now, a lot of the models are getting much more biosecocial. They're beginning to understand that you need interventions that are going to have physiological effects and social effects and so on and so on. But I think if you're aspiring psychologists, bring your psychological science to what you're doing. Don't get trapped up in one of these schools of therapy. They're very useful, and they have a lot of things to. say about interventions and so on but always stay a psychologist right don't label yourself or think

of yourself as a CBT therapist or a psychodynamic therapist or emotion focus therapy or a body-based therapist all of those approaches have fantastic wisdoms for intervention but when it comes to thinking about what are we dealing with here what how are bodies and minds working then you are the best position you are the best profession because you're the one that has studied the mind. You're the one that studying motivations and emotions and so forth. And so you can bring your own wisdoms into what you're doing. So we're very keen on that, that psychologists don't sort of get caught up and just being this type of therapist or that type of therapist, be a psychologist that learns how to use those interventions, but put it within a conceptually scientific model

of the mind. Amazing. That's so interesting and so helpful. Could you give us almost like a practical example of what that might look like. If someone finds themselves in a ward round and they're thinking, I don't feel like there's a very psychological conversation happening about this person or this kind of set of circumstances that we're talking about, how could someone use their psychological underpinnings and insights to just have a different conversation in that room pool? Yeah, well, it depends. You see, for example, if you're working with somebody who's hearing voice, if you're in a acute, you're hearing with somebody's hearing voices, you say, Well, from a psychological point of view, we need to understand, is the trauma in this person's background?

We need to understand what the, are there certain triggers of these voices? And if we listen to these voices, are they telling us something about motivations or underlying fears? So the great thing about a psychologist is you think psychologically. I mean, it may sound obvious, but actually it isn't. And when you're in a ward round, what other people are thinking about medications or symptom profiles or the regular. or symptoms, whatever. You're thinking of the person living with a mind in their context and their history. All of that is really part of what makes that person have the experience that they're having. And that sometimes with people who have very severe mental health problems,

you know, unprocessed trauma is really quite important. And it was quite late. I think it was only in the 80s, actually, that people started to recognize that a lot of these mental health problems that we work with they're sitting on a sea of trauma and if you don't deal with that trauma then they're going to have relapse after relapse after relapse so thinking psychologically as a psychologist that's what you're bringing to your ward round you're there to think as a psychologist you know the psychiatrist is thinking in terms of drugs or whatever and some of the good ones will also think in terms of psychology of course but you're there to really talk about do we know about this Do we know anything about their background?

Do we know what their triggers are? Do we know how they deal with their triggers? Do we know how we can help and cope with the triggers? Do we know how we can help them? If they're hearing voices, hostile voices, do we have been able to teach them ways in which they can learn to work with those voices and so on and so on? So you're bringing your psychological knowledge into the world around.

Absolutely. And I guess just trying to really help bring forward that idea of a formulation actually, you know, and I think that can be so helpful and I'll often think about longitudinal formulation or just, yeah, like what has been, if we're weaving in compassion, what has been their experience of how they've been spoken to and how they might then have internalized how they should speak to themselves and how it's okay to treat other people. Like, so interesting. I mean, the classic position, sorry, don't know you, but the classic position I think is it's not

what's wrong with you, it's what's happened to you. psychologist has what's happened to you, how you, as opposed to what's wrong with you. Yeah, and there's a very big shift. And I think even when we look at individual families, you know, the same parents, the same house even that children have been born into can still lead to very different outcomes for that child because, of course, time has changed those parents. Time has changed the world in between those siblings being born. You know, I think I was a very different parent for my first baby than I was for my second just because of life circumstances and, I don't know, the way that I felt about the world.

And my dad was very well, very healthy when I was pregnant with my eldest. But by the time my second came along, he'd been diagnosed with cancer. So my kind of hope and availability was very different for both of those babies. And so I think sometimes just thinking about context, yeah, and what has been that child's experience, but what has been their family's experience can be really helpful as well. Very much, so, very much so. And also, children are themselves. Anna Freud would say babies are themselves, right?

They're not all clients. They're not exact clients. They all have different personalities, different needs. They relate in different ways. You know, very active children relate to passive mothers, very different to shy children, for example. So you're absolutely right about that. I mean, it's very important. The individual difference is extremely important

in clinical psychology. It really is. And I want to thank you for something you said earlier as well, which was really important, kind of giving permission for scratching those itches that you're interested in. That's really important, even if you've been told, no, this would be better for you. Like, you should do this, but giving us a permission

to come back to it. But also role modeling that actually, even when we get to become clinical psychologists, we may well have failed things along the way. I certainly failed my first attempt at a probability module when I was at university. You know, you failed your kind of first attempt at the kind of biophysiology, I think you said.

Like it doesn't mean that you should give up, does it? No, no, no, no, no. It's okay to have another go. Yeah, yeah. I got really good at it because I had a whole year just to do it. Okay, so there might almost be that, that post-traumatic growth about what happens when we give ourselves more time and have

another go in a more focused way. I think that's a really crucial point, isn't it? The secret of success is the ability to fail. We often used to say that to the clients, you know, but no, you've got to help you succeed. No, I'm going to help you fail because if you can fail, you'll keep going when you fail and you'll get better. So that's a very important point you make, Marianne. Yeah, it really is. And it, you know, absolutely. And I think, especially, when we're told, you know, what actually first, I only decided to become a clinical psychologist in the very end weeks of my undergraduate degree. And I don't know what it says about me that this was what piqued my interest, was that I was told from a clinical psychologist standing on a stage

is a really hard career. I wouldn't recommend you to try. It's not a great narrative, isn't it? It is true. And actually, I'm so glad I did try. Well, I did try. try because I genuinely love what I do. I love the variety of my work. And I just don't, I don't get that sense in the same way of, oh, I've got to do that thing or I've got to do that session. Like, I get, I get to do this. I genuinely feel that's, that's how I feel about my work. And I know not everyone feels like that about, about their jobs and their occupation. So I feel really fortunate that I do. Yes, it's a great point. I mean, I mean, you know, the fact that you might not always enjoy it doesn't mean to say that you don't want to do it, right? Because it's different types of positive emotion, isn't there? One of which is about the positive emotion we get from doing meaningful things. So like changing your baby's nappies and things that might not be so pleasant. But it's meaningful, all right? We do things not because they're pleasant, but because they're meaningful. They give us a sense of purpose and so on. So that's a very important.

point you make that if we're just you know yes it is a very hard career and I think sometimes it's a when you're faced with all the tragedies of life day and day out it can get a bit tricky at times but it's meaningful you wouldn't give it up you know you still want to do that yeah and and with that in mind like you've kind of alluded to the what's happening in the world at the moment it feels challenging as a mother it feels challenging as as just a human it feels challenging as a clinical psychologist and you know with the rise of AI as well it's it's just a difficult it's just a difficult time and maybe you know you have more more years and more wisdom than me

like has it has it always felt like we're living in the most difficult time right now or or is this especially challenging no no you're no it's not especially challenging in CFT with life is full of suffering life is very challenging I mean you know it wasn't so long ago we had the plague and something like half of the population was killed off right so we've always been confronted with diseases and violence wars and so on poverty obviously a lot of humans have lived in intense poverty for many thousands of years and as you know we've lived in terrorist states mostly because with the evolution of agriculture we got the development of the aggressive male and the dominant of the elites so you look at the assyrians the egypt the Romans, all of them, they were all terrorist states, they would just persecute. 30% of the population in Rome were slaves, right? If you look at the reign of Henry VIII, thousands of people were hung in London for crimes that just stealing a loaf of bread, right? We forget all this because we're living,

we've gone through, we're going through periods where things are getting a lot better. Medicine does some miracle stuff now. You know, starvation is not common in Europe at least. I mean, it's been used as a weapon of war, obviously, which is horrible. So because things have been really good, we look at these things, oh, my God, everything's getting worse. It's nothing like it was a few hundred years ago. So that's important to see that on the whole, humans are improving.

The key area that we have to improve is not our technologies and our medicine, so we do need to improve that. It's our minds and how we choose our leaders. As it is at the moment, leadership is, the most damaging of all human things, right? The leaders that are getting to businesses of power, particularly these narcissistic and psychopathic. And we have to understand how do they get voted in? How do they get supported? Because it's the leaders that are actually causing so many difficulties. And it's also in like in the AI industries and the fossil industries, all of these

individuals, if they lack a compassion focus, then they're careless and they will cause mayhem. So it's not so much the process of change. It's who's in control of that process of change, which is the real kind of worry, I think, and it is a bit of a worry, but I'm not pessimistic because I think that there are sufficient numbers of people in the world who are, have a genuine compassion. Most people want to be compassionate, and if we can get the right leadership, then I think we can move the world to a more compassionate place. We could talk about that. We're doing a lot of work on that. So the key thing is don't lose hope.

Yes, things are tricky and all kinds of conflicts going on and so on and so on. But our movement on diseases is getting better. We just had COVID and we evolved this amazing vaccine that actually saved millions. I mean, there would never have happened in any other part of history, but we're getting the technologies. And yes, the pharmaceutical companies were profits here and didn't give the vaccines to the developing countries and so on. But the key thing is that we can do it if we choose to do it. There are people now working in AI about how do you create a moral basis for AI. And that's really important because AI, if we don't, then AI will be problematic.

So I think, you know, there are really good people in the world as well. And I always look to them rather than not so good people. So, yes, I'm kind of hopeful in the long term. But yes, life is suffering, and no doubt there will be more suffering ahead. And that's a really helpful reminder. Thank you. And I think that's one I'll keep drawing on for sure. Yeah, like it's, I think when we're looking at kind of what we can achieve within our career,

and it's fair to say you've achieved a great deal and they're still striving to achieve more. But when you're at the early part of a career, perhaps even still just considering becoming a psychologist, how do you not burn out when you see the challenges before you, with apparently mental health being worse than it ever has been, certainly in the UK, and the level of kind of dissatisfaction and poverty and trauma? How do you feel enough just as a drop in that ocean? Yes. Don't be narcissistic, basically. that's what's so I was a friend of Michael we talked about this from few years ago

because if you're doing that you're just assuming you've got or you should have more power than you don't there's a wonderful story it's a feminist story actually it's lovely the story so this guy and his girlfriend are walking along the beach and there's been a massive storm and all of these starfish are thrown up onto the beach there's thousands and thousands of them and as she's walking along she's picking one up and throwing it back And the guy says, so, what are you doing that for? I mean, there's thousands of them. And she said, because it matters to the one I throw back.

So the point is, don't focus on the big picture, all right? Because if you do that, you'll get overwhelmed. That's just, you can't do that. What you can do is to focus on you, what you can do, what your values are, what your intentions are, how you will try to create a better world in the world that you can operate within. And so you bring that. But you're not, don't expect that you have got the power to produce a lot of changes because then you will get overwhelmed.

Now, the other side of that is that we also worry for our children. And so what we then realize is that part of the anxiety is not for us. It's for our children and our grandchildren. And that's compassionate. How can I protect them from the potential horrors ahead? And that's a different issue of thinking about, how we can do that so so it's an important point this don't get overwhelmed by the problems because you're not going to be able to do that but what you can do is to focus on where you can do

and you know bring compassion to whatever you're doing and also thinking about what is your anxiety or probably your anxiety is mostly about your children and your grandchildren and your friends and therefore it's thinking about what how what would help me cope with the worries that I have about them yeah that is such important advice and even thinking about people working in perhaps NHS services that've got long waiting list is actually that starfish example is really powerful so yeah there might be multiple years wait to get into this service but actually I can do this assessment and do it really really well or the person that I find finally picked up off that waiting list, that matters because this person matters.

And I almost can't be too consumed with everything else that's waiting and all the people that I don't feel like I can help right now. Yes. I think that's really, really important. Focus on what you can do, not what you can't. And the other thing is that it's very easy to get caught up in anger. I used to get very angry in the NHS because I've seen how the underfunding of government after government, the callousness of government in relationship to health is just appalling.

We're working with a group called Compassion in Politics, and they're working with young politicians and some of the young, on both sides of the house, actually, are beginning to talk about we do need to have more compassionate solutions to the problems that we're facing. the older folks, my age folks, they're a pain in the ass, but the younger ones are really getting the message that we need a much more compassionate society. It can't all be about checkbooks and accounts and money. And the health service is an example of extraordinary callousness at the level of politics. Extraordinary callousness is shocking really, but there we

are. People keep voting for them, so. But you can't get too caught up in personal, because and it just makes you very angry. Yeah, and I think when I was recruited to an 8A post, it was probably the anger and the indignance and the unfairness of it that actually drove me to be a really, really effective, efficient clinician. So in my first week, I'd been chatting to a member of staff, and I said, oh, have you been finding it, you know, the transition? It was kind of a remodeled service, and the clinician had said,

oh, I've been here about a year, and I've seen one client so far, And I was like, what, sorry, one client and the clinician said, yeah, because you know, you can't get the therapy rooms. And I said, oh, but I've been recruited to do a 50% face to face. And the client, the clinician had said, well, yeah, that won't happen because you can't get the rooms. And I was like, well, I'll show you. And so I was working four days at the time. And I ended up being a peripatetic clinician. I was in that base only for half a day. half a day a week when I would just do admin, but I found myself clinic rooms all over the rest of the trust. Ultimately, I ended up seeing clients in a private room, in a library, in a health

center, in a, you know, community walk-in centre, in a mental health inpatient unit where they had a spare room. And I saw those clients and I got that waiting list down. So sometimes that can be helpful to activate our sense of drive. But it did ultimately lead to me, I think, burning out of that role, because if you're the only one that feels like you are doing those things and doing the work and seeing the things, it's, I find, I found it hard to, hard to continue that drive

without just feeling a little bit sad, Paul. Yes, and I mean, the key issue I think there is, why do other people feel disempowered to be able to do that? And we live in a society which subordinates people. They don't question authority. They don't fight back against the, you know, because capitalist societies and all of these, it's some people call it patriarchy of all.

And that it teaches people to be subordinate, don't question, right? Well, somebody like you and the whole reason you've got a podcast, all that is immense energy to kind of try to make a difference. So, you know, it's a very special kind of energy that. So, but not everybody has that. And so it's about how do we inspire other people who might be more fragile, who might be more shy, you might be more anxious, but oh, no, we can't do that.

How do we inspire them to be able to, you know, take the risks and have a go? I think it's really important. I mean, yeah, I mean, we had a dictate when I was in the NHS, I don't know, about 20 years ago. We all had to cut our budgets and all these managers came around and said, well, look, you know, you've got a part. the research and partly clinical department so we need to cut the budget so we're going to take your secretary away i said what are you talking about and they said well we just don't have any you know we've got to cut the thing i said are you serious are you going to take my secretary way so you'll pay me 40 pounds an hour to type a letter twice as slowly is my secretary

could do it for five or whatever i mean it's ludicrous they're just mad uh all this payment by results we used to have a we used to run groups now these we used to run community groups and we'd bring in a group and we'd do some work with them for about 10 weeks particularly agrophobics and then we'd have another 10 come in and the ones that had been treated with partner up with the other ones and so we developed this fantastic community um of people and i'd keep an hour on them and if anybody was needed a little bit more help we would see that and so then the payment by results came in says they can't do that what do you mean it can't do that well it's not an effective therapy. What do you mean it's not an effect? We're keeping people out of hospital,

right? We're keeping people well. We're developing communities that is mutually supportive. Yeah, but it's not in the nice guidelines, is it? What are you talking about? I've got to do that. You've got to do recognize psychological therapies. Just madness. So used to get so annoyed talking to them about actually people are supported in their communities, right? And people feel valued and people paying attention to them and so on. And Julian Abel has done some fantastic, he's got a wonderful book called The Compassion Project, which he was a physician doing at the end of life.

And he's done some wonderful work about how you create compassionate communities that break into loneliness and have people talking together and de-shame and so on and so on. But yeah, it just, I mean, the NHS is nuts, basically, absolutely nuts. Yeah. Wonderful people and, you know, fantastic skills.

The management and the funding of it is just nuts. There really are. I feel very privileged to have met the people I've met along my journey and, you know, either to keep them physically in my life or in my phone at the end of the phone, but also it's what we learn about people that just stays with us, I think, during our journey in psychology. It's such a privilege that I get to meet these people,

that we get to have an impact on each other and then I get to carry their wisdom with me as I will carry yours with me in going forwards. Like it's, we're really lucky. Yeah, but the key point you're making is don't get caught up in all that. Do what you can. Of course, you do what you can.

But if you get too caught up in it, then you will get burnt out because it is, it does make you very angry, quite understandably on behalf of the thing, but that anger in the end is a bit of a poison and it were under, you know, it's bad. So it's recognizing, look, I'll do what I can do and I'll do my best and that's it.

I can't do anything in that. And being able to come to terms with don't, I should be able, this should happen, that should happen, that should happen. If you get into all of that, then it just winds you up. So I always remember when I was young, I don't just qualified.

And I was working in an acute unit because I've always worked in the heavy end of the thing, as it were. And so I was beginning to see a lot of clients with quite severe abuse and goodness knows what. So I went to my supervisor. It was a lovely lady. She was psychedynamic. She passed away some years ago now. And in those days, you used to be able to smoke.

And she used to love smoking these French cigarettes, car was. The room was full of smoke. And so I went to her and I said, Kitty, because that was her name. I said, look, I've got all these clients coming through now that I'm qualified. them being sent these referrals and they're really complicated and I don't know what I'm doing half the time. Surely they can see somebody else. And she said, well, who? I said, well, I don't know. There must be somebody. She said, no, there's only me and you. Were the only psychologists in the service in my list are full? So, oh no, what am I going to do? She said, so there must be

somebody else. She said, well, she said, I suppose we'd all be much better off if Freud was still here. But unfortunately, he's dead. So we're going to have to manage without him. And she said, look, the only thing you can do, you can be the best six-month qualified psychologist you can be. That's all you can be. You cannot be any more than that. You cannot give any more than that.

In 20 years, you probably know a bit more than you do today. But right now, you don't know 20 years. You don't have 20 years experience. And that's try to be the best you can in this moment. That's it. There's nothing else, okay? Don't get caught up with anything else. Or the shoulds and blah, blah, blah, blah.

just be what you can be. That's it. And, you know, if the world around you is burning, well, there's nothing that you can do about that. And so it was really good. She was lovely to me and really helped me on my way and help me to just ground myself and the doable and appreciate what I can do rather than always thinking what I can't do. And if only, and because you, you know, when you were a young therapist, you have all these thoughts, you know, or maybe if Beck was in the room or Freud was in the room or whoever maybe they'd see my incompetence and they'd wonder how the hell did I get to be a clinical psych all of those thoughts are coming to your head when you're new to the profession I don't know what the hell I'm

doing half the time that's all natural it's okay don't worry about it just come bring yourself back to the moment okay so maybe in 20 years 30 years I'll be better than I am now but that's I'll have to wait absolutely And what a golden way to finish this 200th episode of the podcast. Like what wise and compassionate words actually. So I want to really thank you for your time. If people are interested in hearing more about our conversation, more generically about compassion,

they can tune into our second episode, which is coming up very soon. Thank you again for your time. in talking to my aspiring, our aspiring, psych audience, Paul. Yes, so that's great. So always try your best. Of course, you always try your best.

But that's it, there is no more. So the shoulds and the aughts, just be clear of that if you tried your best, that's good. Okay, thank you so much for your time, Paul. Thank you. Oh, what an absolute pleasure, what a privilege. I think my chat with Professor Paul will stay with me or forever, probably.

You can hear it in my voice. You can see it if you're watching me on video. I loved that chat, and it meant a lot to me. Even reflecting on it now, you know. It's emotional. Like, I loved it. And I think if we all could take some learning from Professor Paul, we'd be kind of on ourselves.

The world would be a better place. I would love your thoughts on this. Please do let me know in the comments. either on YouTube or if you're listening on Spotify or whatever you're accessing this content, let me know how it resonated for you. Let me know how it connected with you on what stage of career you are at. What will you take from this? What will be your take-home message? I would love to know. And why not listen to or read his books? I especially recommend the compassionate mind. That's a wonderful place to start. If you rate this content, please do subscribe to the

channel, please do follow the show wherever you listen to it. It really is the kindest thing you can do for any creator you rate. And in doing so, in building this audience, it helps me to get amazing guests like Professor Paul Gilbert. This is our 200th episode celebration. Thank you, whether you are brand new to the channel or whether you've listened right since the start. It means a great deal. I love doing what I do. I wouldn't still be doing it if I didn't, but I love to hear from you too. Please do come and connect with me on my socials where I'm Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere and share this episode far and wide because it just deserves to shine and to thank Paul for his time in speaking with us. If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide with this podcast, that's your side, you'll be on your way to be in qualified. It's the aspiring psychologist podcast with Dr. Mary and Trent. Hi, my name is Emily. I am a master's student studying clinical psychology at Southampton. I bought the book of the Clinical Psychologist Collective to help myself prepare for my first round of doctorate at Appalphillant.

And I'm so glad I did. Seeing how others have reflected on their journeys has been so insightful and it's given me a lot to reflect about with my own journey and skills. It's also helped to put things into perspective and reminded me that if I don't get onto the doctorate this year, that's okay. I think the most unexpected pleasure of this book, however, was just how inspirational each and every person's journey was. And using these stories as my morning motivation each day has been such a pleasure. I'm almost reluctant to come to the end.